Tuesdoy, April 17, 1973 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Eleven Tuesday, April 17, 1973 THE MICHIGAN DAILY TEN ROWS DEEP -Bob Heuer --- LOLICH GETS SOME RUNS: Tigers outbelt Bosox -q.s Godfrey Dillard.*. * overcomg REMEMBER THE STORIES of James Meredith, Dick Gregory and other trailblazing "Negroes" who broke into lilly-white Southern institutions back in the sixties? The recently concluded intramural basketball season surprisingly unearthed another similar, but less successful story. The Law Gold cagers, playing in the independent division I.M. league completed an undefeated season by winning the all campus championship. Then, in the first Big Ten Intramural Basketball Tournament, Law Gold levelled the opposition, beating the host team Minnesota for the title. Hurray! At least one Michigan basketball team did some- thing this year. But so what? Well, one Godfrey Dillard, a senior law student and sparkplug of the Law Gold team, played some undergraduate ball at Vanderbilt a few years back. To refresh your memory, Vanderbilt was one of those lilly-white Southern institutions back in 1966. During that year, Dillard graduated from high school in Detroit and chose Vanderbilt over a number of other schools because it combined good academics with a top flight basket- ball program. It also made him the first black player, both at Vanderbilt and in the entire Southeastern Conference, in- cluding big-timers Kentucky, LSU, Ole Miss, Alabama and Auburn. Dillard and Perry Wallace, an I other black from Nashville, en rolled simultaneously in 1966. Wal lace was a softspoken, hometownh boy who didn't make waves; while x Dillard in his own words, was a cocky, flambuoyant Northerner"r used to having his own way. He had gotten along fine growing upa and playing basketball with white Godfrey Dillard boys and anticipated no new problems adjusting to life in the still .segregated South. But at Vanderbilt, things started out badly, and got considerably worse. "I'll never forget the first week I was there," he relates. "A few of us (blacks) were walking across campus to get a hamburger. Some white guys were sitting under a tree drinking beer. They came over and started giving us trouble. Then one of 'em slapped me. "I was stunned. I just wasn't used to that kind of treatment. I didn't retaliate, maybe because we were outnumbered or just scared. But I'll never forget his face." The pressures didn't exactly subside when Dillard began his freshman basketball season. Word got around the SEC that he and Perry Wallace were doing big things for the Vanderbilt freshmen. The reaction was quick and volatile. At Mississippi State, Dillard remained on the bench while 1 his teammates dressed and retired to the stands to watch the varsity contest. Four policemen were needed to shield him from the hostile fans. Alabama cancelled their scheduled t freshman game with Vanderbilt entirely.' Despite the constant pressure, Dillard averaged nearly 20 points a game in a successful frosh campaign and was ready to l step into a starting varsity spot when a knee injury shelved him r for the entire season. During his moratorium from basketball in 1968, Dillard began concentrating more on academic affairs. He improved his class standing and also organized an Afro-American l Society on campus.t Under Dillard's leadership the group brought speakers such as Rap Brown, Stokely Carmichael, and Julian Bond to 1 Vanderbilt. His political activities didn't sit well with basket- ball coach Roy Skinner and the athletic department. Or in Godfrey's words, "They told me to cut that shit out." Nevertheless, at the outset of his junior year, Dillard was l told by an assistant coach that he would be in the starting line-up when the season began. Then, after arranging an appearance by t Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver rumor had it that "Godfrey < Dillard would never start again for Vanderbilt." When the '68-69 season began, Dillard did not start. But he saw plenty of action coming off the bench. He averaged around 1 15 points a game playing guard for a Vanderbilt team ranked third in the nation, behind UCLA and Houston. But as the season wore. on, the team started losing and Skinner got more and more down on Dillard. "Skinner offered no help whatsoever," he explained. "And the assistant coach, who alone had any faith in me, got sick and eventually died. It was hard enough to play with my mind clear. But they destroyed my attitude and just broke me. I finally quit the team and left school in the middle of my junior year." Dillard spent the next year and a half at Eastern Michigan. He got accepted in the Michigan Law School in 1970 and is now completing his third and final year here. But as he explains, the time spent at Eastern was filled with introspection and self doubt. "I had a lot of second thoughts then, about leaving Vander- bilt," he recalls. "I had always been taught never to quit, and it really bothered me to have just walked out. But I'm convinced now that it was the best decision of my life." Dillard compared his experience at Vanderbilt to the treatment many athletes, especially blacks, receive at Michi- gan and all over the country. "They never thought of me as a human being," he said. "During the season I was only a basketball player, and after the season I was nothing. I believe that I was before my time at Vanderbilt," he con- tinued. "They weren't ready for the kind of game I played. Nowadays, blacks can play their own game. Back then I had to adjust. I guest that goes with being first." Vanderbilt apparently learned a lesson of sorts from their experience with Godfrey DiPard, at least in their own minds. Roy Skinner is still the coach. And in an age when Alabama now starts five blacks, Vanderbilt has, in the last five years, recruited the sum total of one black basketball player. R REGULA TION JUNGLE BOOTS CANAS TOP BOSTON JP)-The Detroit Tigers had an 8-1 lead over the Boston Red Sox at the end of four innings Monday and it looked like an easy victory. "It looked like a laugher, but it wasn't," said Detroit Manager Billy Martin after his club had hung on for a 9-7 victory before a Patriots Day crowd of 29,006. "You can never get in front in this park," Martin said. "I re- member once we were playing the Sox here and they were leading 9-0, but we beat them 15-10." The Sox scored two runs on a Reggie Smith homer in the sixth, one on a sacrifice fly by Dwight Evans in the seventh, another on a solo homer by Smith in the eighth, and two on Carlton Fisk's homer in the ninth. After Doug Griffin grounded out, Evans and Tommy Harier walked. However, Luis Aparicio and Danny Cater were retired and the Tigers were victorious. Powerful Willie Horton had made the score 8-1 in the fourth when he slammed his first home run of the year, connecting with two on. daily sports NIGHT EDITORS: THERESA SWEDO ROGER ROSSITER "I got a slider," he said, talking. about the last pitch thrown by Boston starter Marty Pattin. "I made up my mind I was going to hit the ball hard. I pulled it." Horton's drive, his first homer of the season, followed an inten- tional walk to Gates Brown after Al Kaline and Norm Cash had rapped consecutive doubles in the fourth inning. It climaxed De- troit's second four-tun outburst against Marty Pattin, 1-1, and en- abled the Tigers to offset four Boston homers, two by Reggie Smith. The Tigers had tagged Pattin for four runs in the first inning on run-producing singles by Cash, Brown, Aurelio Rodriguez and Mickey Stanley. Tony Taylor homered in the eighth off reliever Bill Lee for Detroit's final run. Rico Petrocelli hit a solo homer for the Red Sox in the fourth off Mickey Lolich, 1-2. .Smith connect- ed with one on in the sixth and again with the bases empty in the eighth. Carlton Fisk, who doubled and scored on Dwight Evans' sacrifice fly in the seventh, slugged a two- run homer in the ninth off reliever Lerrin LaGrow. Boston manager Eddie Kasko, was ejected in the third inning after protesting a called third strike on the. Red Sox' Doug Grif- fin. AP Photo DETROIT TIGERS' rightfielder Al Kaline (6) slides safely into third base ahead of Rico Petrocelli's tag in the second inning of the Tigers' 9-7 triumph over Boston yesterday. A Patriot's Day crowd of 29,006 witnessed the contest, but all went home disappointed as four BoSox homers could not keep Mickey Lolich from posting his first Bengal victory of the 1973 campaign. Major League Standings American League East National League lSOn DETROIT (A)-Johnny Wilson, dismissed last Friday as coach of the Detroit Red Wings of the National Hockey League, fired repeated volleys of criticism at the team's front office during a news c o n f e r e n c e yesterday. "Everybody was coaching this hockey club and they all -had their own ideas," he said. Wilson said there were count- less meetings during the season . HARKNESS, BISHOP CITED blasts Red Wing brass Baltimore Boston Detroit Cleveland N.ew York Milwaukee Kansas City Minnesota Caifornia Texas Chicago Oakland w 6 4 4 3 3 L 2 2 4 S 4 Pet. GB .750 -- .667 2 .500 2 .375 3 .373 3 .333 3 Pittsburgh New York Chicago Montreal Philadelphia St._ Louis East w 5 4 3 3 1 L 1. 2 3, 4, 4, 7 Pet. GB .833 - .714 .571 1 .429 2% .429 2s/ .12.5 5 West in which he was called on the carpet by General Manager Ned Harkness and Executive Director Jim Bishop. "Even when we won the first six games of the season I was criticized by them," he said. "They would say I didn't do this right, I didn't do that right, I should bench certain players, etc." Wilson, well-liked by sports writers and fans, said: "Any Ruggers stage comeback to take third straight win By CHUCK DRUKIS The Michigan Rugby Football Club finished strong, beating Illinois 14-12 Sunday afternoon for their third consecutive victory after suc- cumbing to Ohio State in the preliminary round of the Big Ten Tournament in East Lansing. Peter Hooper recovered a Cleland Child kick into the corner with two minutes remaining in the match to pull the game out after Illinois had taken a 12-4 advantage early in the second half. Meanwhile, underdog Minnesota stunned the heavily favored Buckeyes 21-3 for the championship in what may rank as the biggest upset in the history of Big Ten rugby. Michigan took an early 4-0 lead when Child burst around the scrum after the Blue won the heel and Ibolted between an off guard Illini backfield. The Daley State, however, narrowed the halftime margin to one with a converted penalty kick. After the second half kickoff, Illinois took advantage of several Michigan defensive lapses to convert another penalty kick and a converted try. The Blue, hustling back into enemy territory, narrowed the difference to 12-10 as Quentin Lawson ran 25 yards through numerous Illini tacklers for the try and Child converted, setting up an opportunity for Hooper's last moment heroics. Captain Walt Hooloway commented after the victory, "I'm not too disappointed about our performance with the exception of the Ohio State ganie. In the rest of our matches we've finally come up with a good backfield combination that will help us in the NCAA Tournament This Friday the*Blue will host Chicago Amoco in a night game on Ferry Field. Next week the Blue will have an off date before making a bid for the National Collegiate title at Palmer College in Davenport, Iowa. coach is a little stubborn and likes to do things his own way." But he said Harkness, Bishop and other front-office personnel wouldn't let him. The 43-year-old Wilson said that "except for two or three times in which he sat in on meet- ings, at no time did they bring in Gordie (Howe) or consult with him." He referred to former Wing superstar Gordie Howe, a vice- president in the organization. "It's a shame we didn't use his knowledge," said the calm, cool Wilson. The Wings announced the firing of Wilson late Friday in a terse, several graph release over a Netters wetted The Wolverine t e n n i s team was forced back to practicing indoors yesterday when their scheduled match with Western Michigan - was r a i n e d out. Mother Nature permitting, the netmen will take on Toledo to- morrow on their own Varsity Courts. public relations news wire. Harkness, who said he made the final decision, said the firing came because Wilson failed to put Detroit in the NHL playoffs. Poll results Here are the winners of the recent Michigan Daily Athletic Achievement balloting. Jerry Hubbard was voted by Michigan students as athlete of the year, wrestling coach Rick Bay was named coach of the year, and the Michigan-Purdue football game was singled out as the most exciting moment in the last 12 months of Wolverine sports. The Red Wings' front office called a news conference for to- day and will likely try to rebut some of Wilson's statements. Wilson said Harkness and Bis- hop suggested he spot-play team captain Alex Delvecchio, the 42-year-old star center who play- ed regularly and finished with 72 points. He also said among the things that annoyed the front office were players Ron Stackhouse, Delvec- chio and Mickey Redmond grow- ing mustaches. 7 4 s 3 3 3 3 4 5 .77& .571 .500 .400 .333 .286 2 3 4 Cincinnati San Francisco IHouston San Diego Los Angeles Atlanta ' ~ Yestl West 7 5 5 4 3 3 4 6 6 6 . 0 .636 .455 .455 .400 .333 terday's Results Yesterday's Results Detroit 9, Boston 7 Other clubs not scheduled Today's Games Detroit at Boston California at Minnesota Texas at Chicago Milwaukee at Cleveland, night New York at Baltimore, night Oakland at Kansas City, night Cincinnati at San Diego, Inc. Houston at Los Angeles, inc. Other clubs not scheduled Today's Games Chicago at New York Philadelphia at Montreal Pittsburgh at St. Louis, night Atlanta at San Francisco, 2, twinight Cincinnati at San Diego, night Houston at Los Angeles, night - 2% 2% 3 GARGOYLE RETURNS! (campus humor magazine) MASS MEETING Wednesday, April 18-8:00 P.M. 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